Platinum Cruise

Cruises definitely top the list of my favorite vacations and this one definitely didn't disappoint. 

We started off with an overnight stay in Ft. Lauderdale. Nick's siblings were able to drive over from Naples to visit for the night, and they actually got a hotel room just down the hall from ours. It was so much fun to hang out with them... and we loved that they snuck the wiener dogs in, too :)

 Casey was so nice to bring Nick a birthday cake so we could celebrate a week early together! 

When we boarded the ship in Miami, the weather didn't look too promising... lots of wind and jacket weather. boo. But we ended up spending the first few hours exploring the ship and of course, testing out the food, which was obviously Nick's favorite part! 

The second day of the cruise was a "sail day," and luckily the weather cleared up so we were able to spend some time in the sun on the deck. 

That night was formal night. We had a great time laughing at all of the people getting their portraits taken with the cheesy backgrounds around the ship. To each his own I guess. We decided to just stick with the stairs.... haha. 

And MY favorite part of the food was the chocolate melting cake.  I had one every night of the cruise. Yum!

Our first stop was on the island of Grand Turk - The beach was absolutely incredible with the clear blue water, but my other favorite part is that the ship was docked just a few hundred feet off shore!

This was definitely one of the best beaches that I've ever been to. So beautiful!

Leaving Grand Turk

Dinner on Wednesday and watching Angels and Demons on the deck afterward. 

Unfortunately, on Thursday they cancelled our stop at Half Moon Cay because of a bad weather warning. They claimed they tried to find another port but couldn't... but we have a theory that they just wanted to make more money off of us by keeping us on the ship :) We had a relaxing day though, and we got to get a few extra hours of sleep. And luckily there was a great sunset. 

On our last stop of the cruise we were so lucky to have one of the owners of Platinum take us to the Atlantis resort near Nassau. It was absolutely incredible! I told my family that they totally have to put this place on their list of places to visit. 

First of all, the entire place is almost like a giant aquarium. There are so many amazing collections of fish, dolphins, sharks, stingrays, and so much more. 

Stingrays and a giant grouper

Rumor has it that Michael Jackson used to own the 6,000 sq. foot suite that connects the two towers of the hotel. They say that celebs like Michael Jordan, Oprah, and more have stayed there with the tab of about $25,000 a night. Drop in the bucket, right? 

Beautiful beach at the resort

The pyramid in the background is the famous water slide that they advertise in their commercials -- it takes you through a glass tube through a giant shark aquarium!

The Platinum Wives

The Guys

The yacht harbor... what a life!

At first, I thought our ship was pretty big. However, we came back the port and saw this ship. It's the biggest ship in the world - the Oasis of the Seas. It was practically dwarfing ours! To put it in perspective, our ship is about 11 stories.... the Oasis was at least five to six stories taller than the Destiny. 

While our ship was pulling out of the pier we got to see the inside of the Oasis, complete with two huge outdoor screens, full-size rock-climbing walls and room balconies that actually look in to the middle of the ship. It's incredible! I think our next cruise will have to be on the Oasis :)

What we've been up to lately....

Well, it's almost midterms and it still seems like we're trying to find our "groove" for the school year -- hence, the grim blog posts. However, here are some of biggest life events lately:

Nick has been super busy this semester since he joined BYU's ROTC. He hasn't "officially" signed with the military yet, but he thought he would try it out this semester because they offer some great dental scholarships. He's been going to physical training about three times a week at 6 am. As you know, I'm definitely not a morning person, so most of the time I don't even realize that he leaves in the morning. However, I'm assuming he enjoys it or else he couldn't have the motivation to go every morning :) haha. 

Ironically, the job market for me over the past nine months seems like it has either been feast or famine. For some reason, over the past month I've been offered three new jobs! I only kept one of the BYU jobs that I was offered because the have a policy that you can't work more than 20 hours on campus per week. I interviewed for a position as a Student Ambassador for the BYU Comms Department last September -- but they emailed me a few weeks ago letting me know of an opening for a paid position. It's only a few hours a week, but we get to do a lot of fun event planning and alumni outreach. 

Nick has been with OrangeSoda pretty much ever since it was established a few years ago -- he took a break for about a year for summer sales, but has been working there ever since September. He heard of a job opening in their SEO department last week and had me send in my resume. I met with them for an interview last week and got an offer letter this Wednesday! I started work on Friday and realized that I will actually be seeing Nick more now that we both have jobs than when we didn't. haha. 

But, the best news of the month -- we leave on our cruise a week from today! Vacations are always much more exciting when "normal" life gets really hectic. We will actually be on the exact same ship that my family and I were on six years ago when we went on our first cruise. I'm pretty much counting down the hours...